o9 Solutions, Inc. > Case Studies > Digital Transformation in Tire Production: A Case Study

Digital Transformation in Tire Production: A Case Study

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Applicable Functions

Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Demand Planning & Forecasting
Digital Twin

About The Customer

The customer is one of the world's leading tire producers, offering a wide range of products and services, including tires for cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. The company has a particular focus on the high-value tire market. The company was previously reliant on manual, Excel-driven planning processes across various functions and time horizons, which led to suboptimal decision-making and inaccurate plans. The company's strategic planning was conducted without leveraging key market trends and macroeconomic developments, and they were unable to execute long-range rough-cut capacity plans.

The Challenge

The case study revolves around a major global tire producer that was grappling with highly manual, Excel-driven planning processes across various functions and time horizons. This outdated approach resulted in suboptimal decision-making and inaccurate plans. The company's strategic planning for the next 5-7 years was conducted without leveraging key market trends and macroeconomic developments. Furthermore, the company was unable to execute long-range rough-cut capacity plans due to the majority of constraint information existing as spreadsheets or tribal knowledge. The core planning cycles, including strategic, tactical, and operational, were not interconnected, leading to silos and suboptimal decision-making.

The Solution

The company partnered with o9 to overcome these challenges. With o9, the company was able to put together a long-range demand plan, incorporating leading indicators of demand and key market trends to better understand market size and market share. The company was also able to run a long-range demand supply match by leveraging the o9 Digital Twin and the ability to run various scenarios. This could be evaluated on revenues, opex, capex, inventory, and profitability. Furthermore, all key planning processes across time horizons were managed in the o9 platform, resulting in alignment and decisions according to strategic priorities. The company used the o9 Enterprise Knowledge Graph to build market, demand, and supply-knowledge models. This allowed them to run all key planning processes for all categories, channels (OEM and after market) and countries across all time horizons in a single integrated platform.

Operational Impact

The implementation of o9's solutions led to significant operational improvements for the tire producer. The company was able to reduce waste due to a decrease in overproduction and avoidance of expedites, contributing to their sustainability goals. The company was also able to replace homegrown solutions and Excel with a more efficient and integrated planning platform. The use of o9's highly differentiated knowledge graph allowed for intelligent planning across time horizons. The company's deep industry knowledge in the auto supplier and tire manufacturing industry allowed for faster time to value. The ability to connect the market (OEMs and after market dealers) to the upstream supply nodes by leveraging o9's highly differentiated Digital Twin also contributed to the operational success.

Quantitative Benefit